Category Archives: Photos

An excellent Sunday afternoon

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Yesterday, I attended the Edmonton Photographic Tradeshow. This is only the second annual and I didn’t get to last years …  so I can’t compare from year to year.  As you would expect for a tradeshow, it had a good representation of manufacturers of photo equipment — cameras, lenses, tripods etc.  All the principle manufacturers of 35 mm digital cameras were there — at least the ones most oriented to the consumer and semi-professional.  There were also a few booths advertising training/learning opportunities etc.  There were 2 stages that provided a series of roughly 1 hour lectures all day.

It was very well attended session — notwithstanding the $15 entry fee and the $12 for parking if you parked on site.  Personally, I don’t think I will return to pay the price for what I got in return there ….

But, it did inspire me to pick up my camera and head out for an hour or so this afternoon.  A bright blue sky and warm for the end of October.  I went straight north from my home for a couple miles and spent a bit of time walking in this harvested field with large bales.  I had a Sigma 10-20 lens on the camera and had it at the 10 mm end for this image.  With such a wide angle, you get a huge depth of field on such a day — everything from the bale just a few feet in front of me right out is in focus.

IF I carry the inspiration forward and get out more and write a bit more about my experiences, the workshop cost will be well worth it.

A Photo Book for Charity?

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Twice in the last weeks, I have had reason to look at the photo book publishing site Blurb.  When I was last there, I noticed the Blurb for Good menu item.  Essentially, if you create a book and have designated a charity, you can set the price of the book and 100% of the profits go to the charity.  Given the work I did with the United Way of the Alberta Capital Region last year, I noted that employees of Microsoft had developed a photo book to support their local United Way organization.

I sent an email off to Blurb to inquire whether this was available in Canada and they confirmed that it is.

Recognizing the strong community of photographers in Edmonton and environs, I started thinking about whether there might be interest is some such project here?

My concept so far is pretty simple …  If there is some interest, we would first have to select and gain agreement of a charity — they need to actually be part of the application so Blurb is sure the dollars are going to a non-profit at the end.  We would then have to establish some guidance or …  as to how we would like to do this.  For example, I was thinking I would prefer to minimize the judging — I would prefer to set a goal of (say) 50 or 100 images and invite photographers to submit their chosen image.  There are some other characteristics we would have to consider.  We might also consider whether we want a specific theme to the overall book or …

Would you be interested in contributing to such a project?  Would you be willing to help organize such a project?

Please leave your thoughts/comments.  I will integrate the feedback received into a further blog post.

Thanks.

Day 70 — Red Tulips

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Photo:

As part of our travel to Calgary, we staying in a bed and breakfast:  Westways.   This was the most technologically equipped B&B I have stayed in with wireless internt, IPOD docking station in the room, cable HD TV and blu-ray DVD player. 

These tulips were blooming in the front yard. I intentionally set my lens within the tulips with the focus set such that flowers both before and after the focus point were out of focus. 

Day 69 — Calgary Sunset

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Photo:

We made a short visit to Calgary, Alberta for the weekend.  It was predominantly a visit to friends and family.  On the Friday evening, we went for a walk in a ravine leading to the Bow River.

Nothing earthshattering with this photo but I enjoyed the lighting on the clousds with the setting sun.

Day 62 — Bokeh Explosion

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Photo:

For me, this picture is a great example of the value of experimentation.  While walking in the woods near our home, there was frankly little of interest to shoot.  I had the wrong lens to try to capture any of the many birds; I didn’t have a macro to play with some of the smaller green shoots around.  So, I had to stretch with the camera and just try stuff — play the ‘what if’ approach to photography.   I have thrown a lot of images away from that day …  but not this one.  I like the colours and the bokeh and just the whole feel of the image.  I may play with cropping this image one day to see if composition could be improved.